Yesterday was April 10th of 2010. Unless you were in the vicinity of Murfreesboro, Tennessee last year on the same date, it most likely means nothing to you. It was around noon on Good Friday. Rough weather had set in. Warnings of rotational conditions were promising a stressful afternoon of radio and TV monitoring for my eldest daughter, Ashley, who was a few miles away at work. My son and I had walked to the Great Harvest bakery around 10AM to bypass the inclement conditions; on our way back, I allowed him to stay behind at a friend's house just a few blocks away.
Once home, I clicked on the news and commenced to emptying our small pantry on the off chance we were forced to hide ourselves and our pets in its confined space. My middle daughter arrived home with a friend of hers; we joked about cramming his 6 foot+ frame in there with the rest of us. Channel 4 was broadcasting a good bit of red areas onscreen but for whatever reason, my attention was directed in other areas. The back door opened to reveal Zachary who had been dropped off by the neighbor because the weather had intensified. What he neglected to tell me until much after the fact was the sound of sirens serenading him in the distance directly before he popped in on us.
"Uh, mom? A tornado was spotted at the airport," there was the faintest hint of anxiety in Sarah's voice.
I replied, "Our airport? Here in Murfreesboro?" She nodded her head. I looked at the TV and found nothing to directly alarm me, "I think you saw wrong!" But, I did decide to rearrange the cars to downplay any possible hail damage. I pulled the Silverado into the garage and tried to squeeze past the full lawn-waste bags along its side. "What's that noise? Is your car . . . " My words froze in my throat as I stared at Sarah's friend who had parked his car along the edge of our garage. I'd heard descriptions of the sound. How very accurate -- the freight train was a-comin'!
I screamed at everyone to get in the pantry. NOW! The power had gone out in an instant. The garage door was stuck in the open position. I had visions of me being sucked out and up into the unseen vortex on the other side of the wall. This stupid huge truck! These stupid bags! Breaking free, I lunged for the open door, slamming it shut on the other side. By now, a palsy of fear shook me from head to toe. After making sure the kids were properly stowed away, I felt compelled to grab the camcorder I'd set on the dining room table to return to our neighbors after borrowing it for my anniversary trip to New York City. The window in front of me displayed an unbelievable scene. I was rooted to the spot. I could not look away. An undulating wall of air and, and, confused blackbirds? moved in and out and up and down over and to the right of my view. The dark objects appeared to dance in the pulsating grip of air currents. My God! My God!
I tore my gaze away and hightailed it for the pantry with its canned goods, pillows, flashlights, three frightened children, and one terrified Husky-mix dog. Fabio the cat, in his feline arrogance, refused to join us. The mingled sounds of our breathing mixed with the quick words of my pleading prayer to the Lord as we waited for the mighty noise to overpower our sounds and tear our world to pieces. I'd seen the falling hail and witnessed my carefully planted trees whipping in the abusive winds right before the pantry doorknob clicked into place. Even my imaginative brain could not conjure up images of something infinitely more powerful leaving us whole and safe in the next few minutes. I berated myself for paying such lax attention. How could I put that kid into harm's way over a car!? But, I really hadn't known. From Omaha, Nebraska to Lamar, Colorado to right here and right now, we'd experienced multiple episodes of such weather and always emerged on the other side, unscathed, and without the beneit of an actual sighting.
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We did survive to emerge from hiding. Unscathed. A miracle as I recall what I saw through our dining room window. What I witnessed as my kids and I followed the path of debris with camcorder in hand. Roof tiles, first individual, then in sections, giving way to entire rooms-worth of carpet from homes unknown. An Eeyore stuffed animal on a neighbor's lawn. Twisted pieces of metal siding in the middle of the roads. 2x4's treated like jagged spears as they jutted from trees, homes, lawns. Nails tossed about by a giant's careless hand. Power lines downed. Fences demolished. Substantial brick homes scattered like the pieces of a child's building set. Once magnificent trees sheared clean off; their stumps resembling broken teeth against the skyline and the earth.
Lost animals, wide-eyed homeowners, road-clogging cars -- everywhere. The telltale scent which signaled a broken gas line somewhere close. The scream of emergency vehicles. Static-filled voices calling out to all trucks and cars in the area of here and there, hither and yon! The frantic hustle of men and women, uniformed and civilian, searching with desperate energy through piles of rubble for a mother and her baby said to have been sucked from their house located kitty-corner to the yard they were now thought to be in. My borrowed video equipment became the record keeper of that moving rescue though Kori, 30, and Olivia, 9-weeks old, would become the only deaths of this immense tragedy.
The days and weeks to follow held far more power for me than the EF4 tornado and its partners which ripped through our fair city. By the time state and national officials arrived to survey the damage, huge portions of the clean-up efforts had already been completed by neighbors and locals who simply stepped in as needed. Power tools, trucks, food and water -- all seemed to appear as if on cue at all points mired by the devastation. The efforts of Murfreesboro and its peoples in the face of this unexpected challenge only reinforced the beliefs which led me to move to this area. Regular everyday people giving of their time and themselves for the sake of others.
Emotionally, the damage would linger, healing arriving in measured increments, for me, for John Bryant, who was left behind in the wake of his wife's and child's death, and the many others who were directly hit, losing their homes and cherished belongings. Physically, the scars created by the paths of the tornadoes are still evident but they have been softened by nature's restorative properties and man's ability to get things done. But yesterday, as I stood near the Stones River across from the Riverview neighborhood which was hit quite hard, leaning forward to hear every word spoken in a commemorative ceremony to mark the first anniversary of the Good Friday Tornadoes, I felt the loop close. It was a full-circle moment. We really were getting better. Moving forward.
There at the Thompson Lane Greenway Trailhead, with seedlings and saplings of replacement trees soaking up the perfect Springtime sunshine, I experienced that most elusive of goals in the face of life-changing events: closure. Our mayor gave a brief but touching speech. I listened to the jogging pastor who'd clung to a tall oak near the water as the eye of the storm passed over him. I finally saw, in person, up close and personal, the man whose wife and baby I had seen through the lens of that camcorder during those awful moments when hope and desperation stood hand-in-hand. The storm took from him, violently and without permission. The storm tossed him like a rag doll as he hunched over his family, protecting them to the best of his ability. The storm literally broke his back. But, it did not break him. John Bryant's spirit was intact. Everyone in the small crowd gathered at the edge of the path sensed it.
And, I felt at peace.
A moving account, Gloria. Glad you were able to reach a place of peace.
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